Good morning, Paris! Good morning, city that believes croissants and baguettes are important to one's well being! Good morning to all you French people who cannot go through the day without saying bonjour (good morning) a thousand times over!
At this time of the year, Paris mornings are dark. Sunrise is just short of 8 a.m. (Madison's sun rises a whole hour earlier today.) Even though I am leisurely about getting up, about showering, about packing up my bag, I step outside for a pre breakfast walk in the gray light of predawn.
Of course, I walk to the park.
I love this time best here. You see the runners and the handful that cut through to get to work, but mostly you see empty spaces.
Autumn is definitely felt in a park with so many chestnuts. Nonetheless, the gardens will maintain the flower beds for a long time. Something will be planted in them, in fact, even in the winter (this tells you how mild Parisian winters are as compared to those in south-central Wisconsin!)
Alright, time fro breakfast back at the hotel.
I leave this curious and culture rich city today. At around noon, I have a train, a super fast TGV that will take me all the way to the southeast of France. To the edge of the Haute Savoie -- that mountainous region that I've grow to love. To its regional capital -- Annecy.
I've wanted to see this town for a while now, but it's so out of the way, and definitely a hefty trip even on TGV trains. Not many cities are worth that kind of effort. I've long abandoned a love of urban crawling in favor of something more gentle. But I found a place to stay a bit out of the city. On Lake Annecy. It offers the tranquility I'm looking for on this trip, at the same time that it's a short ride over to the old town for when I do want to explore city streets. (It's called Auberge du Pere Bise -- a family-run hotel and restaurant standing at the lake's edge for 120 years.)
To see Annecy, it would have been easier to fly into Geneva -- a mere 22 miles south of it. (By comparison, Paris is 350 miles north of Annecy.) But I'm not a fan of that kind of a trip. When it's an option, I do want to take a train over an airplane. And flying into Switzerland taints the trip with flavors of another country. In flying into Paris, I'm keeping it all French.
The train to Annecy leaves from the Gare de Lyon. Feeling ambitious, I decide to walk to it. I've done it before -- google gives it a bit under an hour. But google didn't drag a suitcase and wear a backpack when it ran its estimates. It takes me well over an hour.
(French men have have conversational skills that come from years of practice...)
And I should have remembered -- it's not an especially pretty walk in that there is a lot of traffic along the major circuit. Still, with a 3.5 hour train ride before me, I like the idea of morning movement.
And eventually, I pass the Jardin des Plates and that's always interesting, though a little less so toward the end of the blooming season. Still, lovely tree lined avenues!
And now it's time to cross the river...
(finally! Gare de Lyon...)
At the station I pick up a cup of coffee (at Starbucks! I almost asked them if they made Pumpkin Spice Lattes -- but was afraid that they would understand me to mean that I wanted one and there is not a whole lot more on their beverage list that appeals to me less). And now it's time to board the train.
The ride of course is smooth. Very fast initially, slowing down as we reach the more mountainous region of the country. On time. Pleasant. And now I am in the Haute Savoie Department (this is the place where both Morzine (February 2022) and Chamonix (February 2023) are located).
Let me tell you just a little about Annecy. Sometimes called the Venice of the Alps, the town is picturesque, sitting at a point where the river meets two canals. It's green, big on flowers, big on sport. The history of it is complicated and perhaps I'll come back to it when I actually do go into town. For now, think of it as a mid-sized French town (population about 125 000) with Medieval roots and a stunning landscape of water and mountains bordering it on all sides.
I arrive at the train station at 4:30 and cab over to the hotel.
(on the approach, from cab window)
Too late to study bus schedules. I just want to get to my room. This one.
Trying to save money, I took a room with a "partial" lake view -- meaning you can see some water out the window!
No matter. You just need to walk the hotel grounds, or sit on the terrace to enjoy the fuller view.
I felt the water of this lake -- the cleanest in France, they say. It's actually warm(ish). Not warm enough for me though! This paddler is in a full wetsuit!
I do want to swim though. I need to get my fake knee to work well in water. I deliberately chose a place with a warm pool. Indoors!
I can't be ambitious today. Call it a soft arrival! I want to smell the air and walk the shoreline for a few minutes and then retire.
(Looking back at the 120 year old hotel...)
I go up the hill to the village (Talloirs) center.
There seems to be a party going on in the main square. All the villagers come out for it. I ask if it's a wedding, but they say no, it's Amelie's birthday! (Is she famous, or are the villagers merely that friendly? I ask at the hotel desk -- who's Amelie?? They tell me -- she runs the Tabac (newspaper) store. Everyone knows her...)
Love, pouring in... so beautiful to watch...
All my dinners are scheduled to be eaten here, at the hotel. I'm staying for four nights and I plan to switch between the two casual eateries at the Auberge. The owners are actually very much involved with refined French cooking -- the chef of the most well known and loved restaurant here has two Michelin stars for it (Le Restaurant Jean Sulpice), right on the premises of the Auberge. But since I am alone, eating that kind of a meal is simply a waste of money. I want to stay with simpler foods. Today, for example, I eat at the much more casual Le 1903.
One thing you learn very quickly when you try to save on restaurants in French hotels is that the kitchen in the "lesser place" is still run by the same leader who oversees the two-starred Michelin place (that's fancier/way more expensive). At the 1903, the waiter's reaction to my choice of appetizer (crayfish, swimming in a delicious sauce) was -- oh, that's the chef's most well known dish! Well now, am I really eating in a lesser place?
That crayfish appetizer was indeed fabulous. When I moved on to the fish (from Lake Annecy), I thought perhaps there was a pattern here: the fish was lovely, but it was the sauce that stole the thunder. Remember when French cooking first came to town here, in the United States? We believed then that its value lay in the sauces. Tonight's meal surely lent support to that...
(the bread was also superb: made here, with natural yeast.)
Time to go to sleep. I haven't caught up yer from the lost night over the Atlantic! And tomorrow has to be a full day. Even if it's a "full of nothing day." Somehow nothing in travel is always richly rewarding.
And love...
